February 27, 2014 11:10AM # Does Occupational Licensing Make Sense? By [Jeffrey Miron](https://www.cato.org/people/jeffrey-miron) --- SHARE The standard argument for occupational licensing — government-imposed limits on who can supply medical, legal, plumbing, and other services — is that such laws protect the public from low-quality provision of these services. This argument is not convincing on its own: licensing limits the *quantity* of services provided, raising price, and thus harming consumers. A necessary condition for licensing to make sense, therefore, is that any improvements in service quality outweight the losses from higher prices. A [new study](http://www.nber.org/papers/w19906?utm_campaign=ntw&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ntw), however, finds that when de-regulation allows nurse practioners to perform more tasks without doctor supervision, the price of well-child medical exams declines (as implied by standard economics), with no “changes … in outcomes such as infant mortality rates.” In at least this case, therefore, licensure is all cost and no benefit. ##### Related Tags [General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).